Legenda maior Sancti Stephani regis

Peace, Rebellion, and the Triumph of Faith

After securing external peace, Stephen faces internal rebellion stirred by the devil, but through divine protection and the intercession of Mary, Martin, and George, he defeats the rebels and brings them to baptism.

At last, once the Pannonian kingdom was attending to the will of the blessed young man, he strengthened the peace that had been faithfully established with the peoples of foreign provinces, so that within it he might more securely be able to carry out what he was turning over in his mind for the new planting of Christianity. But the adversary of all goodness—the devil, full of envy and malice—stirred up internal wars against him in order to wreck the holy resolve of Christ's young recruit, since by the devil's prompting the pagan people, refusing to bow their necks to the yoke of the Christian faith, were working with their princes to pull themselves out from under his rule.^✦1 All of them, with the seal of the most glorious cross protecting him and with the merits of the Mother of God and perpetual Virgin Mary as his patrons, he soon brought under his service beneath the banner of Bishop Martin, beloved of God, and of the holy martyr George, once their leaders had been killed; and after they were washed in the water of baptism, he compelled them to worship the one God, distributing the counsels of salvation through faithful priests.